What is a little white lie

Little White Lie | Family Secret Reveals New Identity | Independent Lens

A Film by
Lacey Schwartz

Producer and Co-Writer
Mehret Mandefro

Editors
Toby Shimin
Erik Dugger

Co-Director and Director of Photography
James Adolphus

Music by
Kathryn Bostic

Animator and Motion Graphics Designer
Bran Dougherty-Johnson

Senior Creative Advisors
Michelle Ferrari

Creative Advisors
Sam Pollard
Marco Williams

Co-Producers
Lisa Cleff-Kurtz
Jamund Washington

Associate Producers
Collier Meyerson
James Smith

Production Coordinator
Ellie Lotan

Production Assistants
Molly Abrams
Mallory Kotik

Assistant Editors
Chelsea Harmon
Jack Placidi

Additional Editing by
Alison Shurman

Additional Camera
Joel Fendelman
Eitan Riklis
Derek Rittenhouse
Lacey Schwartz
Marco Williams

Additional Sound
Oki Harris
Matthew Magratten
Sasha Santiago
James Smith

Interns
Maryssa Antillion
Taryn Ariel
Lila Dobbs
Issac Giovannetti
Chris Iversen
Laura Jacobson
Amanda Masaikos
Devin Mead-Ward
Sophia Ortega
Gus Spelman

Post-Production Interns
Dov Alpert
Suzette Burton
David Berman
Brittany DeLillo
Alliah Fafin
Mary Grabenstatter
Jason Morrison
Eric Perez
Andrew Skean
Arthur Wybrands

Transcribers
Waranetta English
Mysescha Joell
Tristan Griffin
Aaron Loo
Tanya Meronk
Allison Moser
Tamara Nadolny
Tolu Oluwadiya
Benjamin Peters
Vic Reznik
Alexandra Rosenman
Rodney Sino-Cruz
Jonathan Walker
June Williams
Terrel Woods
Yvonne Yu

Production Services
Truth Aid

Production Assistance
Firelight Media

Post Production Services
Final Frame

Supervising Sound Editor and Re-recording Mixer
Jacob Ribicoff

Sound Mix Facility
Soundtrack Film and Television

Legal Support
Charles Glorioso
Alston Bird LLP
Shatzkin & Mayer, P. C.

Archival Material Courtesy of
Bruce Corwin
Kristen Parker
Peggy Schwartz
Robert Schwartz
Ben Selkow
Rick Telander
Bison Books Publishing
Getty Images
Kingston High School
National Archives
Random House Children’s Books
WCBS-TV

Additional Music
“Unstoppable”
Produced by Mills
Courtesy of Michael Mills

“Feeling Good”
Written by Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley
Performed by Nina Simone
Courtesy of Verve Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises
Courtesy of TRO Musical Comedy Productions, Inc. (BMI)

Special Thanks
Becca Bender
Roger Bennett
Phil Bertelsen
Beverly Bond
Leland Chapin
Damaris Cozza
Antonio Delgado
Gail Dolgin
Dana Drappo
Sandi Dubowski
Lawrence Elman
Lewis Erskine
Emily Estadella
Penny Faulk
Firelight Media Labsters
Amy FooteFlavius Galiber
Sabrina Gordon
Mable Haddock
Carter Harris
Michael Hill
Karl Hollandt
Sarah Hsia
Kristi Jacobson
Sofia Kenzer
Emir Lewis
Jimmy Lynn
Deirdre Maloney
Peter Martin
Justin Mass
AIko Masubuchi
Khaliah Neal
Netflix
Nancy Novack
Kristen Nutile
Tessa Pang
Kerry Rachlin
David Rappa
Brooke Richie
Roo Rogers
Zuhairah Scott
Beth Scott
Michael Skolnik
David Sutphen
Megan Twohey
Ashley Waters
David Wout
Maria Yenikonshian
Rodrigo Zuloaga

Fiscal Sponsor
Hartley Film Foundation

Executive Producer for ITVS
Sally Jo Fifer

Funding Provided by
Righteous Persons Foundation
Be’chol Lashon, A Project of the Institute for Jewish Community and Research
Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation
Foundation for Jewish Culture’s Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film
Hartley Film Foundation
Alexander M. and June L. Maisin Foundation
Tribeca Film Institute
The Kurtz Family Foundation
And others. A complete list available from PBS.
Little White Lie is a co-production of OTB Productions LLC and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Little White Lie is produced by OTB Productions LLC which is solely responsible for its content.

Little White Lie (2014) - IMDb

Cast & crew
User reviews

IMDbPro

20142014
Not RatedNot Rated
1h 5m

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

761

YOUR RATING

Play trailer2

1 Video

3 Photos

DocumentaryBiographyDrama

A film about denial, race, family secrets and a search for identity. A film about denial, race, family secrets and a search for identity.A film about denial, race, family secrets and a search for identity.

IMDb RATING

7.2/10

761

YOUR RATING

Directors
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- James Adolphus(co-director)
Writers
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- Mehret Mandefro(co-writer)
Stars
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- Sarah Brokaw
- Bruce Corwin

Directors
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- James Adolphus(co-director)
Writers
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- Mehret Mandefro(co-writer)
Stars
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- Sarah Brokaw
- Bruce Corwin

See production, box office & company info

16User reviews
2Critic reviews

See more at IMDbPro

Awards

Videos1

Trailer 2:23

Watch Official Trailer

Photos

Top cast

Lacey Schwartz Delgado

Self
(as Lacey Schwartz)

Sarah Brokaw

Bruce Corwin

Joshua Corwin

Marcia Corwin

Michael Fedderoff

Elissa Federoff

Mary Federoff

Mehret Mandefro

Kristin Parker

Rodney Parker

Self
(archive footage)

Peggy Schwartz

Robert Schwartz

Zuhairah Scott

Self
(as Zuhairah Scott Washington)

Matthew Noah Word

Self
(as Matthew Word)

Directors
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- James Adolphus(co-director)
Writers
- Lacey Schwartz Delgado
- Mehret Mandefro(co-writer)
All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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User reviews16

Review

Featured review

Interesting premise but disappointing

What happened in Lacey's family has happened in many, many families over the years. A woman has an affair while married, gets pregnant, and chooses to raise the child as if they are the child of their husband. Sometimes the husband is aware and sometimes they are not. Sometimes the affair partner looks like the husband and sometimes they do not. Sometimes the child looks very out of place from the rest of the family and sometimes they do not. Women and men have their own reasons for keeping these things to themselves. My disappointment is that Lacey seems to miss the love and acceptance in her family. She assumes that they all suspected she was black but were just keeping it a secret, as if it were something they considered shameful. Perhaps they truly didn't care if she were half black, or any other race or nationality. Perhaps they were accepting and encouraging of the possibility that a married couple was trying to stay together and become a loving family for their child, even if an affair was suspected. That certainly was my feeling as she was telling about her upbringing. She was clearly loved as a member of the family, no questions asked and no declarations about which race she sided with needed.

I found the story disingenuous as she repeatedly states she lived in an all white world and didn't see black people until high school. She stated she didn't even think about race. Later she introduces Rodney by saying he was a man she had known all of her life. Several family members or friends relate stories about him so he was clearly involved with her family. I also question her description of black people as thinking that they have to try harder for their achievements to be recognized - this came shortly after she said she was admitted to Georgetown because she looked black in her picture. Unfortunately it is when institutions decide that we black people must be treated differently because of the way we look that we end up having to try harder. I hope that Lacey will learn that looking to the color of her skin will only serve to segregate her in society. I think her family saw beyond her skin color and I admire that. I think that is the only way we will all be equal and free is to see each other as people and not members of a certain race.

helpful•14

kands6191
Jul 8, 2020

Details

Release date
- November 21, 2014 (United States)
Country of origin
- United States
Official site
- Official site
Language
- English
Also known as
- Outside the Box
Production company
- Truth Aid
See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

Runtime
1 hour 5 minutes
Color

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By what name was Little White Lie (2014) officially released in Canada in English?

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Saying "Little White Lies" World of Psychology

The degree of lying - you know, white lies - seems to be inherent in all languages and all forms of communication. Matthew Lesko

While we value honesty, people still lie for a variety of reasons – and more often than you might think. According to one study 19For 96 years, which used a diary-based study, participants were allowed to lie down on average once or twice a day. The same study showed that lies can generally be classified as self-centered (lying for personal gain) and other centers (lying for the benefit of others).

These friendly lies, also known as prosocial lies , are commonly encountered as a way to avoid embarrassing situations or to spare the feelings of the hearer. This "little white lie" is often seen as a relatively harmless and necessary part of many social interactions.

But are such pro-social lies really harmless? And what motivates us to be dishonest with people? A new study published in the journal Experimental Psychology-General explores these questions in detail. Matthew Lupoli of the University of California San Diego (Rady School of Management) of the University of California and a team of researchers conducted three studies that provide an intriguing look at the role compassion often plays in prosocial lies and what it says about people's social behavior .

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The first study was conducted using a sample of over 400 university students who were asked to submit private rankings of an essay written by a person from another university they were affiliated with (but who was indeed a Confederate experimenter). The intended purpose of the essay was for the writer to show why he or she should be admitted to the graduate program. Participants were asked to rate the essay in terms of writing quality, and whether to include the essay as an example of a good cuff entry (not pre-prepared). They were also given the writer's initials "CG" and an introductory paragraph, and were then told to rate the essay according to the established evaluation criteria in terms of overall quality. The essay itself was already deliberately written as low quality and has been reviewed as such by other proponents.

After an initial personal evaluation of the essay, each participant was subjected to experimental manipulation aimed at getting them to empathize with the writer or the neutral state. This is because the participants read a message meant to describe what happened recently in the writer's life. Half of the participants read a message describing the recent death of a cousin with whom the writer was particularly close. The message was written with the same grammatical and spelling quality as the original essay, but still conveyed the "CG's" emotional discomfort. Neutral simply described a recent trip to the store.

Participants were then asked to provide direct feedback to the writer on their essay. To keep them as honest as possible, participants were also given the following instructions: “Your feedback is important. Each author in this project must decide if they want to rewrite their essay before submitting it to a competition where they can win a small prize at the end of the semester. Thus, the information you provide will help the writer improve his or her essay.” They were also asked to rate the overall quality of the essay, make recommendations for needed revisions, and also rate the likely success of "CG" as a graduate student.

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Results showed that participants who reported empathy for "KG" because of reading the story of his recent loss were much more likely to rate the quality of the essay than participants in the neutral state. In addition, the participants were much more honest in their evaluation when the ratings were closed than when they were given to the writer. When asked to rate CG on other qualities, participants in the compassionate state were much more likely than those in the neutral state to see him/her as more pleasant, warm, likeable, and trustworthy. They also rated CG as more likely than female.

In examining these results, the researchers found that prosocial lying most likely arose from the fear of causing emotional harm with negative feedback. Even when other factors, such as the raster's emotional state, were taken into account, the connection between compassion and lying seemed particularly strong.

As another trial of compassionate-prosocial lying reference, Lupoli and colleagues conducted two more studies. The first of these studies dealt with views on the grace of empathy, i.e., were there people who were more compassionate, more likely to lie than less compassionate people? Using a sample recruited using the Amazon Mechanic Turk platform, the prosocial task was repeated only this time to evaluate essays by other mechanic workers, although the procedure was modified to reduce possible experimenter effects.

Participants were also tested on two measures of empathy and empathy and were also asked to rate how important they felt it was to prevent their co-workers from being hurt by negative feedback. As expected, the results showed that people with high levels of compassion are more likely to inflate their ratings. In particular, people with high levels of compassion were also more likely to report the possible harm that could result from their feedback and was more likely to lie as a result.

As for the final study, the researchers redesigned the study to compare prosocial lies with selfish lies (lying for personal gain, not for others). A sample of nearly 500 university students completed a structured personal inventory before being assigned to one of two groups. The first group watched a slideshow and a film about childhood malnutrition, while the second group watched a neutral film.

All participants then performed a cognitive task requiring them to press one of two keys indicating whether there were more dots on the right side of the screen or on the left. For the selfish state, participants said that they would be paid more money if they indicated that there were more dots on the right side of the screen because most people can easily identify the number of dots on the left side. » For the pro-social terms lie, the participants were given the same information but were instead told that the money would be donated to a charity for malaria victims. They were also given information about the charity, including the work they did to fight malaria.

As expected, participants in the compassionate state who viewed the malnourished child film and slideshow were more likely to lie about their responses to charitable causes, although this made no difference to selfish lies. Even when individual traits and emotional state were taken into account, the connection between compassion and prosocial lies seemed as strong as ever.

So what can we make of this research? While we are taught to value honesty and to be treated as dishonest, we still tend to resort to lying as long as it is for a good reason.

Learn more